Maurice Frydman was already a seasoned spiritual seeker, long immersed in India’s inner life and philosophical traditions, when he came into contact with Nisargadatta Maharaj in Bombay. Living in India and familiar with Advaita Vedanta, he moved within circles where the presence of realized teachers was quietly but clearly recognized. Within this context, a friend or acquaintance, aware of Frydman’s earnest search and his sensitivity to authentic teaching, recommended that he visit a little-known sage living above a small shop in the Khetwadi area of the city. The introduction did not arise from institutional channels or formal religious structures, but from the organic network of spiritual relationships that forms around genuine inquiry.

When Frydman finally met Nisargadatta Maharaj in that modest upstairs room, he encountered a mode of instruction marked by striking directness and clarity. The simplicity of the setting contrasted with the depth of the teaching, and this very contrast appears to have confirmed for Frydman that he had met someone speaking from lived realization rather than from doctrine alone. The early conversations impressed him enough that he began to return regularly, joining the daily question-and-answer sessions that unfolded there. Over time, these repeated visits and sustained dialogues provided the material that he would later translate, edit, and shape into the work now associated with their meetings.

The meeting between Frydman and Nisargadatta can thus be seen as the convergence of two mature trajectories: on one side, a seeker steeped in India’s spiritual milieu and already oriented toward nondual understanding; on the other, a householder-sage whose uncompromising insight was quietly available to those who found their way to his door. Their encounter was not an accident in the casual sense, but the fruit of Frydman’s long-standing involvement with spiritual circles and his readiness to recognize a voice that spoke to the heart of his inquiry.